


Lion in a Wiry Frame

by isaac richard (isaacrichard)



Series: It’s No Big Surprise (You Turned Out This Way) [1]
Category: Mr. Robot (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Character Study, Domestic Violence, F/M, Gen, Immigration & Emigration, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Introspection, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Themes, Svenska | Swedish, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:07:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24727219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isaacrichard/pseuds/isaac%20richard
Summary: Tyrell Wellick is transgender.He fights, bites, and kicks his way through it.
Relationships: Joanna Wellick/Tyrell Wellick
Series: It’s No Big Surprise (You Turned Out This Way) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1788682
Comments: 3
Kudos: 11





	Lion in a Wiry Frame

**Author's Note:**

> yall can blame the fucking tumblr anons for this one man... they love to egg me on ;p  
> also: i do know swedish, but not anywhere near real fluency. don't crucify me if the translation is at all fucky.. i know google likes to give odd words that are technically right, but aren't conversational :|
> 
> title is a reference to twin size mattress by the front bottoms

The first punch is always the best.

There’s no feeling on Earth quite like your fist slamming against someone else’s cheekbone, the unbridled joy of mutilating their flesh with your own two hands.

The girl beneath him screams, tries desperately to wriggle away. He grabs her by her stupid pigtails and slams her face into the grass. She puts up a good fight, which he can appreciate, though it’s stupid on her part. Now he can’t take it easy on her, can he?

And he doesn’t even know her name, she just happened to be unlucky enough to be in his path on the playground. He had to be home to _sew_ in twenty minutes, not allowed to play outside today, and the more he thought about it, the angrier he got.

Pretty soon, he was livid, and the sound of the girl now beneath him popping her gum was the straw that broke him.

Her screams are attracting an audience. The ruddy, sadistic faces of the rest of their _mellanstadiet_ crowd in to watch, making bets on the winner with marbles and baseball cards.

She gets a good blow to his face, splitting his lip. He laughs at her, wiping his mouth with his already-dirty sleeve. _Pathetic._

His blows are inelegant, but hard, and the girl shields her face while attempting to kick his stomach. She shrieks. He laughs hysterically, messing up his aim.

“ _Flickor! Stoppa det här ögonblicket!”_ the recess monitor had finally looked up from her trashy romance novel, only to find two of her wards whaling on each other. “Girls! Stop that this instant!”

The monitor rushes over, but he’s already gone. He gives the girl a swift kick in the side as he goes, ending the match, and hell hath no fury like the look he gets in response. He grins, bloody spit dribbling down his chin. He can feel the bruises start to form under his ribs, and it feels _good._

“ _Bra spel!”_ he laughs over his shoulder, though the tears are mistily forming in the corners of his eyes. “Good game!”

“You’ve been fighting,” his mother says, as he bashes in through the door of the farmhouse, throwing his school bag moodily in the corner. It’s not a question.

He stops, as you do when an adult is speaking. He hangs his head, already in tears.

He scrubs at his eyes, but they, of course, don’t quit. “Sorry, Mama," he wails.

His mother, a wispy woman in her early thirties, shakes her head. “Papa won’t like it.”

He lets out a hiccuping sob, stamps his foot petulantly. Everything was unfair! “I don’t wanna sew, Mama! I hate it! I want to play outside – all the other boys get to play outside!”

He’s much too old to be having temper tantrums, but Mama holds her arms out to him anyway. He sobs into her blouse.

“Because you’re not a boy, _mina älskling,”_ she replies, voice much softer than he deserves. "You’re my beautiful little girl, and sometimes, girls have to do things they don’t want to do. It’s not fair, no. But it’s the way of things.”

“I hate the way of things!”

“I know you do,” she says, patient. “Now let me braid up your hair – it’s atrocious, my love. You must keep it in your elastics, which I know you’ve been told.”

“Hate it,” he complains, but sits at Mama’s feet and allows her to comb back his long, mousy-blonde hair with her fingers.

Mama sighs, tugs his hair into locks, and begins to braid. She pinches tight at his scalp, but the feeling comforts, more than it stings. “How about we put off the mending for today. We can see what we can bake for Papa instead, yes? I’m thinking something chocolate.”

That was more like it. “Okay!”

_“Vad menar du, ‘hon lämnar’?”_

Papa’s piss drunk, swaying at Mama’s side. She holds his hand, steadying her husband, her age written all over her face as she exchanges a look with her only child. They were going to have to tell him sometime, and it looked like that time had come.

“What do you mean, ‘she’s leaving'?"

Years have passed, and Tyrell is grown. College – and America – are waiting, his plane ticket and shiny new passport ready on his desk. His bags are packed, and he can no longer suffer through his parents: specifically, Papa, and his rules, and his hatred of English. They lived in the middle of nowhere, on a falling-apart farm, in _Fucksville, Sweden –_ and his father _still_ thought it was the greatest place on earth.

Papa didn’t believe in ‘going to America’, though Tyrell still couldn’t understand how anyone would stay here instead _there,_ where the sun was hot, the girls were pretty, and the movies had plot.

Tyrell was sick of his father’s pathetic disposition. And he was sick of his mother putting up with it – his father’s drinking, his yelling, his temper. Recently, Tyrell had even witnessed him striking her, neatly across the mouth, making her grab her face and grasp at the countertop for balance. That had been the end of his respect for his father.

He told Mama she could come with him – his scholarship paid for his own housing, and he could surely scrounge up something for her. They could make it work, but she wouldn’t leave him. It wasn’t her way – and that burned Tyrell up even more.

_Her way. The way of things. The way things are done._ It was all total bullshit, and he longed to break free of this cage, see how far his wings could really take him.

He was going to conquer America – if he only could get there, already.

“I’m going to America, Papa,” he says, in English, because English makes him feel strong. Important people all spoke English – movie stars, pop stars, politicians. He has to repeat himself in Swedish, though, and the way Papa’s face contorts nearly makes him lose his nerve.

“The _fuck_ you are!” his father bellows, chest puffing up like a penguin. Tyrell sees, clearly, where he gets his anger from, and he hates it. “I won’t see my daughter turn into some _American harlot –“_

“It’s a good thing I’m not your daughter, then, isn’t it?” he hisses.

And he didn’t look it, either – until he opened his mouth and the feminine pitch spilled out, no one questioned him. He was taller than his father, broader than his mother, and blessed with small breasts he could easily hide. His hair had been short for years, and everyone (who could stand him) used the correct name.

Except for his mother and father, of course.

Mama seemed like she maybe wanted to, sometimes, but the pure fury in Papa’s eyes always made her cower. Cower just as she does now, not trying to defend her child in any way.

Child. He wasn’t a child. They couldn’t keep him anymore, and he was leaving.

_“Tonje Antonine Wellick!”_ his father yells his full name after him, and then begins to intone:

“So much depends / Upon a red wheelbarrow

Glazed with rainwater / Beside the white –“

That _stupid fucking poem_ , Tyrell couldn’t stand it. If it was meant to teach him the value of farming, or family, or what the fuck ever, he didn’t know, but he hated it. He had heard it all throughout childhood, and he was done. He didn’t care. He was better than all of this, and it was time everyone else knew that, too.

He punches his father in the face, and Papa collapses. Tyrell doesn’t break a sweat. His mother screams, and he doesn’t flinch.

“Last chance to come with me, Mama,” he murmurs, in the English that _she_ had taught him, but his mother is already falling all over his vanquished father, holding his head in her lap. Crying. Running back for him to hit her some more. Tyrell spits, disgusted.

He leaves.

The first hormone shot hurts like a bitch.

Joanna, his giggly college girlfriend, holds the needle above the meat of his ass where he lays on his dorm bed. And he can’t stop laughing.

“You’re gonna hurt me!” he complains in Swedish, squirming, and she flips back her gorgeous brown hair. She’s laughing, too. She pins him down by his thigh, strong for her size.

“No – I watched the nurse. I can do it,” she replies in prim Danish, and he likes that. It feels like a secret they keep from the Americans. It feels like home.

“Maybe I should just –“

And then she stabs him. “ _Din fitta!”_ he shrieks. “You cunt!”

It totally sucks. There’s a deep ache when she removes the needle that no amount of rubbing can chase away, like a reversed bruise. She slaps a bandaid on his ass, and when he rolls over, it smarts deep inside his muscle, where the testosterone had been plunged.

He doesn’t care. He’s too ecstatic to care. He’s waited for this for – for forever, it seemed.

He laughs, and pointedly pretends a few tears don’t escape with it.

“Do you feel like a new man?” she asks him, petting his wet cheeks, and he just laughs. She never had any trouble treating him exactly like the man he was, and he'd love her for it always.

Joanna treats him like a man, not a boy or a girl. He was honestly still wrapping his head around it.

“Something like that,” he manages, still laughing, and leans in to kiss her. She melts into it, and they somehow manage to squish together on his mattress. Thank God his roommate was out for the night.

Later, when they’ve made love and she’s sleeping in his arms, it occurs to him that they’ll get married. Have a couple kids one day, if she wants that. He sees it, plain as day, and it was good. There was no one else he would ever want.

Or so he thought.

Elliot Alderson is just like him, and it baffles Tyrell that no one else seems to have noticed. Just the way he introduces himself – “ _Elliot Alderson. Just a tech.” –_ is brimming with pride, though his tone is quiet, nearly meek.

Hackers were notorious for their observation skills, and Tyrell was no different. Everything about the techie’s movements are practiced, and he says his name as if had been hand-selected – because it probably had been. Tyrell knew just the feeling.

“Don’t be so modest,” Tyrell says, and adjusts his tie. This one is his favorite. “I was just where you are, once.”

Elliot squints at him, and Tyrell smiles brilliantly. _Yes. I’m like you, you're like me._

The E Corp team moves on, and Tyrell must follow. But he watches Elliot out of the corner of his eye, in the meeting, and catches him swap the folders on Terry Colby.

 _Huh,_ Tyrell thinks, not realizing this is the beginning of his end. _I’ll keep an eye out for the Alderson one. Brothers in arms, and all._


End file.
